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Technology Stocks : Novell (NOVL) dirt cheap, good buy? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Paul Fiondella who wrote (42318)	6/26/2006 9:48:51 AM
From: miraje	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42771

The new strategy is the old strategy I've lurked this board and watched this company for years. Played options a few times. The disfunction is amazing and seems to be incurably ingrained. Check out the very first post on this thread, made over ten years ago... Message 36557

To: Paul Fiondella who wrote (42318)	6/26/2006 2:57:04 PM
From: Scott C. Lemon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42771

Hello Paul, It is amazing to see this huge change ... and wonder if there is any way they will ever recover from all of these years of waste. I like the quote that you put in your post, since it so directly points to the mis-alignment of strategy again. Uh ... if Novell does not have the DNA to support communities of developers, then why enter into the Open Source movement? Excuse me, but I really thought that the Open Source movement was all about communities of developers! Another couple of comments, based on local Utah conversations that I have had: 1. The leadership in Provo is MIA. Everything is really being done in Cambridge, and I have been told by many people that the Provo campus has become a whole bunch of disconnected teams. Most of these teams report to Cambridge, and simply co-habitate the Provo campus. There is no real energetic, charismatic leadership in Provo. I can't speak for Cambridge. 2. There is a huge resource vacuum in sales. I am hearing the the Novell sales force has been pillaged and has left in so many numbers that constant account interaction is growing to be impossible. Out of sight, out of mind ... when the customer is not constantly being courted by Novell sales people, they begin to look for other partners ... 3. Development resources are also thinning. Again, due to a variety of reasons many of the internal people believe that Novell has left itself extremely thin ... covering too many bases with too few developers. This then slows the ability to iterate products and stay on top of advanced features. It's funny ... I've been watching the stock to see if there was going to be a chance ... I'm not sure there is. At least at this point, even with the regime change, there is still a lot that would have to be done! Scott C. Lemon the.inevtiable.org

To: Paul Fiondella who wrote (42318)	7/15/2006 1:28:00 PM
From: Doren	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42771

The company can never succeed and for one simple reason --- it cannot commercialize good ideas, it buys creativity and then kills whatever is living in what it bought. It's even simpler than that: 1) Apple changes over to BSD UNIX a very difficult but SUCCESSFUL transition. The key? USABILITY Apple changes over to Intel chips another difficult transition. The key? USABILITY Now Apple has a super cool UNIX product out there complete with cool laptops. Hell Linux admins are buying Macbooks to admin their systems. Not Novell books. 2) Novell buys Ximian. For what reason? USABILITY - did it push? NO. Nothing much happened. The mindset at Novell is command lines are usable. Designers are "artsy types" and not worthy. Yeah tell that to Steve Jobs. So they threw away BILLIONS. That's what it comes down to. A refusal to hire interface designers to put a great usable interface on Linux. Microsoft is so weak now. Linux would kill them if it had a great interface. Good installers.